Loonglow

by Helen Eisenbach

  “I’d rather not talk about Mia. Anyway, I’m sure you think this is all terribly—”

  “You can’t tell me you don’t see the humor in it. I mean, objectively speaking, it would be a perfect setup. You’d get to torture the rich …”

  “And give myself a thrill as well? Since every woman dreams of marriage?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Clay, you’re alarming me. I’ve really got to hang up now. Don’t think it hasn’t been a dream.”

  This was not going as he’d planned; if only she would let him explain about Mia. “I’m sorry I got you in the middle of this, and I’m sorry you’re upset.” She was silent. “Look, you don’t know what it’s like to be the golden hope of the family firm.”

  “What about all those little pinko Jew babies he’d be expecting us to give him?”

  “Don’t you see, he’d be relieved we didn’t!” He covered his eyes; he was babbling. “Louey, I was pissed at the way he was acting. I wanted to hurt him, not you.” He swallowed. “This is why I stay away from my family.”

  “Well,” she said. “I hope you find someone to make you happy.”

  “I’m not looking for—” To his astonishment, the phone had gone dead in his hand. She had hung up on him.

  He placed the receiver in its cradle. This was taking things a bit too far, he thought. It was understandable that she was upset about Mia, though, strictly speaking, it wasn’t his fault. Yet to hang up on him because of a silly joke anyone with a shred of humor could appreciate—it wasn’t like her at all. It was crazy.

  Still, as he considered the chill in her voice, he wondered if he had just destroyed any chance he might have of seeing her again. As he considered what this turn of events signified, and what she now seemed to feel for him, he was filled with growing honor at the realization that he had somehow fallen completely, hopelessly in love with her.

  I met Lulu in a small, dark room. I had just managed to survive an unsuccessful flight to Paris with a small percentage of the aircraft’s passengers, and though I seemed to have passed out from the sheer thrill of the crash, when I woke up I was neatly tucked into a small bed, somehow completely on my own. I sat up, then fell back in a swoon. The door opened.

  “Still among the living?” said a tall dark stranger, peering down at me with a lack of respect for the injured I hastened to chastise her for. Yet when I saw her face, I found myself unable to speak; surely this was no doctor, this was a goddess impersonating a doctor, a hallucination. She was so beautiful I felt dazed just looking at her, and when her face lit up in a smile, I could feel my temperature rising. There was obviously something wrong with my bodily functions.

  “Let me have a look at you,” she murmured, an unprofessional gleam in her eye. Tugging at the covers, she unveiled my apparently unmarred body, which had been clothed in some sort of tasteful equivalent of a burlap sack. Taking a pair of scissors from her pocket, she neatly cut the gown down the middle, startling me. Then she pulled the sides apart, exposing me completely.

  “Uh—” I started, but she silenced me with a stern shake of her head, continuing to study my naked body intently as if searching for subtle signs of internal injury. “Am I—”

  Sometimes Louey would be walking down a street and catch a glimpse of someone she was sure was Mia—it didn’t even have to be a physical resemblance, but just the way a thin dress shimmered, clinging to a body as if there were nothing underneath, as if the dress had only come to life when slid on over Mia’s flesh. She had a way of making clothes seem slightly sordid. Even in a plain black sheath she gave off the impression she’d just finished having sex, for hours—standing up.

  She gingerly began to press my flesh, making small sounds as if she were making a discovery with each touch. Her hands were surprisingly warm and gentle, and I closed my eyes. Her palms swept over me, pressing, smoothing. This wasn’t accomplishing what she had in mind, I thought.

  Next she was brushing her fingernails across my chest. My eyes flew open. “Does that hurt?” she said softly. I started to protest, but she covered my mouth with one hand. I began to feel dizzy as one hand warmed my lips and the other continued to make its way down my body. “How about that?” she said. “That feel painful? Sore?”

  I didn’t seem to be able to answer coherently, and before I realized what she was doing, she had moved her hands down my legs, squeezing softly. “Am I hurting you?” she asked, pressing the flesh of my calves and the insides of my thighs with an attention that went beyond professionalism. “Feel okay? There? How about there?”

  “Uh, okay.” She reached between my legs, ignoring my widened eyes. “I don’t think it’s necessary to—”

  “I’m the doctor,” she said harshly. “Do you want to let a serious injury go untreated?” I gave up, closing my eyes again as her fingers began to play my flesh with fatal accuracy. “That hurt?” she murmured, pressing. “That? That hurt? Does that?”

  Her hands continued for what seemed like hours. “Oh, God,” I told her. She smiled at me. “God, that hurts.”

  With the advent of Sales Conference, Louey realized that life as she knew it was soon going to be worse than ever. Twice a year the company geared up to put the best possible face on the season’s books to the salesmen who went out and sold them around the country, and twice a year office insanity escalated beyond all normal bounds. Why was it, Louey wondered, that she never remembered how bad it got until the madness came around again? This year the management was even more hysterical than ever, as if there were some serious question about the company’s future. Louey (and most of the staff) had been privy to what seemed like daily human sacrifices. No one knew why their lovely boss needed fresh new victims every morning; most of them just held their breath and prayed not to be chosen. Though Daisy prided herself on being “one of the few truly Christian publishers around,” she seemed to thrive on playing the lion. So far Louey hadn’t been called to The Office, but that was sheer blind luck, she knew.

  She had fifteen books this season. It had been bad enough when she’d had half as many. She had to start rejecting authors, she realized; her work life had gotten completely out of hand. Why did she always forget how authors could transform themselves from competent professionals to small, dependent children in a matter of days? The sheer volume of work was eroding her usual goodwill; the closer Sales Conference approached, the more frayed her nerves became. Fran Lebowitz was right: childhood was the last time you could be truly happy to hear that the phone was for you.

  Kevin became increasingly protective toward her, but the work was taking its toll on him as well. Occasionally he would even make mistakes, which was completely out of character, and though they were usually minor, he flayed himself as if he couldn’t comprehend how the person responsible for them had taken over his body.

  “Get me out of here!” he wailed.

  “Toto,” she said, “where’s Kansas?”

  There were times Louey wondered if she could bear to continue at this job. Regent Books was considered one of the worst publishers in the business, it was true, but when you came right down to it, she wondered how many truly good ones there were. Nearly every publisher she’d met displayed some form of psychosis. (One man she knew threw bagels at his staff whenever sales of their biographies of criminals and courtesans were too low for his liking; another liked to corner unsuspecting females for coital bliss atop the carpet of the conference room where weekly editorial meetings were held.) Louey marveled that so many people incapable of civil conversation had managed to rise to positions of substantial power. Those publishers who were genuinely nice rarely had openings for new editors; once someone landed at a house at which it was actually pleasant to work, he rarely left. Louey wondered if she had the patience to wait through years of fighting off sexual assault or flying baked goods until she found a haven—if one actually existed.

  When she seriously thought about quitting, however, she had to admit that it would be even worse to
have so much free time she’d be able to dwell on the subject of Mia round the clock. That she might be able to withstand the temptation to dwell on Mia every free second she got was utterly implausible; she’d proven that all too well.

  Clay hadn’t meant to hurt her, she knew, but she couldn’t stop replaying the memory of that dumb-animal expression on his face, and then discovering the cause of it, Mia. How stupid could he be, not to consider the possibility that Mia might show up, since his father obviously knew her? The way he turned such a shamefaced red made it seem as if he had expected Mia to be there. Maybe she should have asked to hear the story he’d alluded to only once. (She always tried to resist any impulse to ask about Mia, to learn anything about her life when it touched someone else, since it could never again touch her.) Yet what use was there in trying to be rational? No matter what she did, Mia returned to haunt her. Mia was an addiction, clearly, like food or air. The thought that she would have to live without her, day in, day out, for the rest of her life, still had the power to incapacitate her.

  “Why not try looking for someone new?” Kevin mentioned one afternoon.

  “What, a stranger?” She stared as if he’d suggested homicide. “I wouldn’t know what to do with my hands.”

  “I’m sure some nice girl would be happy to help you with that little problem.” He smiled, opening a can of soda as he ogled the pedestrians strolling up Sixth Avenue. “Louey, it’s not healthy to lock yourself up like this—your brains get fried. It’s time to meet another sordid, flashy woman.”

  “And then come tell you everything?” she sneered.

  “Just try to keep in mind I brought you up to be a lady.” He ducked a flying paper bag.

  The day came for the in-house run-through of book presentations for the spring list. Louey always dreaded these meetings; it was the closest thing to being called before the principal that adult life had to offer. She did fairly well once she got going; there was always some enjoyment in entertaining the staff, an audience eager to be amused. When Louey got to the podium to present her first book, she studied the silent faces, sensing welcoming anticipation.

  In the middle of her presentation of a book about the rag trade (which Louey called Garmentos from Hell), an unexpected interruption came from Daisy, whose rages had thus far been restricted to the confines of her office. Without warning, she began to tear apart Louey’s speech, the book (which Burt, the editor in chief, had bought and then dumped on her), even the author’s physical dimensions. As she railed, Louey grew numb, trying to answer calmly. Unhappily, her replies only seemed to fuel the other woman’s irritation. Finally Louey held her tongue, until the last outburst had run its course. Then she turned and made her way back to her seat.

  The next few presentations went by in somewhat of a blur. It seemed to Louey that Daisy’s further outbursts were just fainthearted versions of her attack on Louey. She did not think she was being overly sensitive in drawing this conclusion; no one in the room would meet her eye.

  Returning to the podium was even worse. As she presented a riveting if bizarre biography of an unorthodox surgeon whose daughter Louey called “poodle girl—World’s Tallest Mammal”—Daisy continued her vendetta. Louey didn’t know why this behavior should surprise her; she’d seen enough convincing evidence of Daisy’s penchant for abuse. (If anything it should be easier to endure than watch.) Yet somehow it grew harder each time to rise and go up to the front of the room. As she discussed a mercilessly satirical novel called Great Big Hairdo, Daisy retreated slightly, making a small joke at her expense without attacking the book itself. She could sense the room’s poised anticipation and surprise at Daisy’s sudden capitulation. Then the meeting was called for lunch.

  Louey walked to her office in a daze, scarcely believing what had happened. Daisy’s relish at humiliating others usually expressed itself publicly in random swipes, rarely a concentrated attack. It must have been her inability to feign immediate concession to Daisy’s initial protests that had swelled the publisher’s rage. Nor could Louey fathom that there had been no protest from any corner of the room. As she got her things together to go out, the editor in chief corralled her, asking her to lunch. She canceled the plans she’d made: perhaps Burt had some explanation for the day’s events. She might even be fired. The thought made her slightly giddy.

  As they walked to the restaurant, Burt remained silent, breaking his internal dialogue only to make the most trivial of small talk. He can’t bear to tell me until we’re in the restaurant, Louey thought. When they sat down, he ordered a drink, still silent; he couldn’t bear to tell her without a drink, evidently.

  At last it came. “I know you must be upset about this morning.” She held her breath. “But in a way you asked for it.” He took a sip of his drink.

  “How?”

  He studied his menu, clearing his throat. “There was something almost casual in your presentations. You weren’t really selling your books.” Her eyes widened. “I know you must be feeling bad,” he hastened to assure her, yet he went on picking apart her performance, as if trying to convince himself of the inherent logic in the publisher’s ravings.

  “Oh?” The quiet sarcasm in her voice brought color to his cheeks. Was there any point in mentioning that books he’d bought had been among the ones Daisy had attacked? she wondered. He’d been silent in their defense as well as hers. She sighed: it was no use. Her boss was a man who prided himself on being keenly sensitive, more intrinsically humane than anyone alive. His taking her to lunch was some kind of symbolic sympathetic gesture, she could see, even as his words belied his actions. That he was fond of Louey didn’t stop him from trying to make sense of this abuse of her; if it had truly been senseless, he could not have let it go and still consider himself a caring person.

  After lunch (for which Louey could not bring herself to thank him), the meeting resumed. So, unfortunately, did the attack on Louey’s presentations. How long had she worked at this place? she wondered. How was it this had never happened before?

  By the time she reached a discussion of her twelfth book, the now all-too-familiar voice interrupted to explain that what might be of interest to “literary Jew faggots writing for The Village Voice wasn’t of the slightest concern to normal people, who bought most books anyway.”

  At this, something in Louey broke. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. Burt stole a glance at his boss, reserving his opinion until Daisy made her next move. Louey drew her things together, sighing. “I can’t speak for all the Jew faggots in the world, of course, but I doubt the people in this room have had much fun listening to you tear apart projects people have worked hard on. If you’ve got some problem with me, I don’t think it’s fair that all these people have to suffer for it.”

  A silence fell over the room. At last Daisy spoke. “Let’s go on, shall we?” Her voice was polite. “I believe you’re finished?”

  Louey nodded, starting to make her way back to her seat.

  Daisy stopped her. “I don’t think we’ll be needing you any further, Louey.”

  Pardon? Louey blinked. Uh, okay. With the hushed silence of an ambush ringing in her ears, she turned and walked out of the room and then the building.

  Louey was walking back into her dorm room after her final freshman exam when her roommate took a rare break from her continuous phone calls to announce, “Your stepsister’s here.”

  “Pardon me?” Louey said, but her roommate, already reabsorbed in conversation, didn’t answer. Dumping her books in the outer closet, Louey opened the door to the bedroom adjoining her roommate’s.

  She should have had an inkling. Mia lay on her bed, idly reading an old draft of a paper she’d just finished. Louey went in and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall across from Mia.

  “Happy to see me?” Mia stretched, laying down the papers.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Did I come at a bad time?” She grinned at Louey.

  How had she managed so long
without this sight? Louey wondered. It had been nearly a year since she’d touched (or even seen) Mia. “What are you doing here?” Her head was spinning.

  “How’d you do on your finals?” Mia stroked her lower lip lazily, her eyes not leaving Louey’s.

  “Pretty well, I think.” Her voice was shaky, and she cleared her throat. “Did you drive all the way out here?”

  “You must have me confused with some other common trollop.” Mia put a hand over her eyes and nestled against the pillows. “I hitched. One guy even took me two hundred miles out of his way. Wasn’t that sweet?”

  “From now on, he’ll have his eyes glued to the side of the road looking for you.”

  “Tough break,” said Mia softly, unbuttoning her shirt. Louey’s heart stung in her chest. It didn’t make sense, Mia here in her dorm room, lying on her bed, undressing. She’d wondered more than once if she’d imagined what had happened that bewildering afternoon. Mia bent to take her shoes off. “Is there something keeping you from leaping onto this bed, by the way?”

  Louey went over to the bed and Mia pulled her down against her. It had been ten months since she’d kissed—since she’d seen Mia at all; with each kiss she banished weeks. Mia slipped her hands under her sweater, studying Louey’s face as if looking for some transformation brought on by the separation or its cause. “You miss me?” she said, doing several things beneath the thin material that made it difficult to answer. Louey was breathing heavily; the blood seemed to be pumping in slow motion as she closed her eyes and yielded to Mia’s hands. What was Mia doing here? It must have happened, then; she hadn’t dreamed it. She couldn’t believe that Mia had come here—for her?